


maybe this time he'll stay

by ShyAudacity



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e15 Eddie Begins, Family Feels, Fix-It, Hospitals, Hurt Eddie Diaz, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Near Death Experiences, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Pre-Slash, Rescue, Worried Evan "Buck" Buckley, this idea refused to let me be so here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25808620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyAudacity/pseuds/ShyAudacity
Summary: He’s walking towards a small body of water when his flashlight catches on something. It’s not till he gets closer that the picture gets clearer. It’s not a something, it’s Eddie- lying there only halfway out of the water and unmoving.He's in the water. Why is it always the water?ORA fix-it fic for "Eddie Begins."
Relationships: Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 269





	maybe this time he'll stay

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not totally sure I like how this turned out but I'm posting it anyway. Enjoy!
> 
> Unbeta'd and title from "Maybe This Time."

It’s so dark outside that Buck almost doesn’t realize that it’s him. That it’s Eddie lying there at the edge of the water.

When the crane came down and the tunnel caved in, everything around him came to a standstill. He was so focused on getting Bobby out of the way that he didn’t even consider that something else could also go wrong- that someone else he cares about could be put in even more danger.

If Bobby hadn’t pulled him away from the ground when he did, he might have never stopped digging and trying to get to Eddie.

Now, standing there surrounded by the rest of the one-eighteen and other rescue team members listening to Bobby give details on how they’re going to find Eddie, Buck can’t seem to focus enough to listen to what Bobby is actually saying. He stares numbly at the ground, wondering what the hell he’s going to do if this day doesn’t have a positive outcome.

Shit. What the hell is he going to tell Christopher?

It takes a nudge from Hen for Buck to realize that Bobby has stopped talking and everyone else has broken off in different directions to look for Eddie. Buck ignores the wary look that Hen sends him and straightens his shoulders, trying to give off the appearance of being okay. He knows it’s more or less useless, but nobody else knows that.

His feet carry him away on their own accord, not paying attention to where he’s walking. Buck’s flashlight hangs limply in his hand as he puts distance between himself and the dig site. He can’t decide which moment scared him more, realizing that he’d lost Eddie’s weight on the other end of the line or looking up and finding that the tunnel had caved in with Eddie still underneath all of it.

 _The second one_ , his brain supplies unhelpfully, _definitely the second one. At least the first time there was still a chance at him making his way out._

Buck shakes his head, hating himself for even thinking those things. Looking up he realizes he walked farther from the group than he meant to- the dig site is nearly a hundred feet behind him. There’s another body with a flashlight following not far behind him- Hen, from the looks of it. Buck turns back around with a sigh; he doesn’t need anyone to come and check on him. He just needs to find Eddie so they can go _home_. 

He’s walking towards a small body of water when his flashlight catches on something. It’s not until he gets closer that the picture gets clearer. It’s not a something, it’s _Eddie_ \- lying there only halfway out of the water and unmoving.

_He's in the water. Why is it always the water?_

Buck drops his flashlight, with a muttered “Oh God,” before turning over his shoulder and yelling, “Hen! Hen, I need you over here!”

Buck rushes forward to where Eddie is, dropping to the ground next to him. Buck doesn’t even bother to check him for injuries before getting his hands under Eddie’s armpits and pulling him onto flat ground. Eddie’s helmet is bobbing in the water a few feet away; Buck prays there isn’t a head injury mixed in with all of this. His hand's ghost over Eddie’s face; he's too pale too cold too much everything bad and Buck feels sick just thinking about it.

He’s still searching for a pulse when Hen comes up running behind them with a medkit in her hand. She asks, “Is he breathing?”

“I- I don’t think so,” Buck says, struggling to get the front of Eddie’s wetsuit open. “I can’t find a pulse. Starting compressions.”

Buck doesn’t think twice about doing it, not even when he feels Eddie’s ribs crack under the pressure of his hands. He has to keep going. After a minute with no change, he starts to get a little frantic, worrying that they might have been too late to do anything.

It can’t end like this for Eddie. It just can’t.

“You don’t get to die on me,” Buck says forcefully. “Not yet. You hear me, Diaz? You. Are Not. Allowed to die... I’m not letting you leave your son like this, now _breathe,_ goddammit.”

Buck looks down just as Eddie’s eyes start to flutter a few seconds later. When he starts choking, Buck all but falls on top of him as he rolls Eddie onto his side. Eddie coughs harshly as he forces all the dirty water out of his mouth while Buck and Hen share a look of relief over his head. It’s the longest two minutes of his whole goddamn life as he waits for Eddie to finally take a deep breath.

“I’m going to get Chimney, and a backboard,” Hen tells him, already getting up, “You good here with him?”

Buck just nods, unable to make words at the moment. Hen takes off towards the dig site and Buck gets an arm under Eddie’s back and props him up against his chest, hoping it’ll help Eddie breathe better. He runs a hand over Eddie’s wet hair, trying to bring him back to reality a little more.

“Please be okay,” he says quietly, “Please, please be okay.”

The next few minutes pass by in a flurry. Hen and Chimney get Eddie onto a backboard and into the back of an ambulance so fast that it makes Buck’s head spin. He helps Hen get Eddie out of his wetsuit and attaches the monitors to the patches of bare skin that he can reach. It’s hard to tell if Eddie’s shaking from the cold or shock but Buck tucks Eddie’s turnout coat and the blanket tighter around him anyways.

He doesn’t want to think about what would have happened had he found Eddie even ten seconds later. If he hadn’t walked up when he did-

_Take the win for what it is, Buckley. Don’t ruin it with the what-ifs. Just be glad that he’s still here._

They’re ten minutes from the nearest hospital when Eddie finally starts to show some signs of lucidness. His glossy eyes stare up at the bright lights in the ambulance as he babbles incoherently to himself. The cold must still be messing with his head. Buck has to lean in close just to hear him, but he can’t make sense of any of it. 

“What was that?” Buck asks after hearing a familiar name.

“Chris,” Eddie mumbles, “Where’s Christ’pher?”

“Chris isn’t here. He’s at home, remember? We were on a call, Eddie. You helped save a kid.”

Eddie grows agitated, shifting against the gurney like he wants to get up. “You can’t- you take Christopher. You can’t have him; I won’t let you.”

Buck doesn’t know what any of it means but it makes his blood run cold all the same. He tucks his hand into one of Eddie’s and squeezes his fingers, reminding Eddie that someone is here with him. Buck scrambles to pull his phone out of his pocket, his fingers fumbling as he tries to pull up the contact that he needs. 

The phone rings four times before someone finally picks up. Buck starts talking before she even has a chance to say hello. "Carla? Carla, something happened. I need you to put Christopher on the phone. Eddie needs him."

Buck listens as Carla walks to some other room of the house to find Christopher and Buck leans forward to hold the phone up to Eddie’s ear. He doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s whole body settles almost instantly when a quiet _“Hi, Dad,”_ comes from the other end of the line. 

Buck can’t hear much of what Christopher is saying, but he figures that’s beside the point right now. Eddie keeps turning his face closer and closer to the phone, obviously seeking out his son; every few words sound like _"Love you, miss you."_ It makes Buck's chest hurt with wishing he could help more. He looks up at Hen warily; they’re still four minutes away from the hospital.

He looks back to Eddie just as his eyes are starting to slip shut. Every time he blinks, they stay closed a little longer than the time before. The panic inside of Buck is doubling by the second. When Eddie’s hand goes slack in his own, Buck pulls the phone from his ear and holds it up to his own.

“Chris?”

_“Buck? Is Dad okay?”_

“Yeah, bud, he’s okay he just-.” How the hell does he explain this to a nine-year-old without scaring him? “He had a little accident at work and he got really tired, but he’s going to be fine. I think talking to you really made him feel better. Can you give Miss Carla the phone for me? I need to talk to her for a minute.”

Buck keeps talking to Carla until the ambulance arrives at the hospital, explaining as much as he can without falling apart. He doesn’t pull his hand away from Eddie’s even once, too worried that something will go wrong again if he dares to let go. A part of him wants to hold Eddie close and refuse to let him out of his sight for even a second. That has to be the only way to keep him safe, right? There has to be a solution to all of this.

It can’t always be one disaster after another.

It’s not until Eddie’s brought into the emergency room and a nurse tells him that he has to leave and let the doctor work that Buck lets go of Eddie’s hand. Leaving his side almost hurts more than finding him in the water, it’s hard to say for sure. His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest as he follows Hen out to the waiting room. Buck slinks off to the bathroom before she can ask him anything; he needs a minute to collect himself before he goes back out there. He won’t be able to keep up his composure otherwise.

He’s really, really, tired of waiting rooms.

Buck splashes water on his face, ignoring the way his breath catches in his throat as he does. He balls his hands into fists as he walks back to the waiting room, hoping that it’s not obvious that he’s started to shake all over. Bobby is going to be here in a few minutes; he’s going to want a greater account of everything that happened- there’s going to be an incident report at some point or another. He’s not sure how to say that his best friend _maybe something more_ nearly died tonight. Hell, he’s not sure he even wants to admit it to anyone other than himself. The longer that he can put it off the better.

Buck sags in his seat as low as he can, his eyes never leaving the hallway he knows Eddie is down. Hen doesn’t say anything as she sits next to him and Buck is grateful for it. Neither of them speaks as they wait for the rest of the team to arrive. Even if he wanted to, Buck’s not sure that he could make the words come.

What do you even say when something like this happens?

Buck sits and waits, wishing more than anything that he can find the answer to his question in all of this chaos.

It’s late by the time that Buck finally gets to go back and see Eddie.

Carla shows up with Christopher after a while, swearing that the boy refused to sleep until he was sure that his Dad was okay. Judging by the look on his face, Buck couldn’t blame him; he had no plans of sleeping either until he got to see Eddie for himself. Once they finally got to go back, Buck kept a protective hand on Christopher’s back as they made the walk to Eddie’s room. He can’t lose his cool in front of his best friend’s kid. He just can’t.

Eddie is barely awake when they walk in, but he reaches for Christopher anyways, asking that Buck help him onto the bed. It’s a small fit, but Christopher still manages to get comfortable on the bed, Eddie’s arm draped around him like it’s the only thing keeping him safe. In a matter of minutes, Christopher is passed out on his father’s shoulder, and Buck is left alone with a drowsy Eddie who keeps dozing off mid-conversation.

He keeps staring at Eddie’s chest, knowing that there’s bound to be bruising on his chest underneath the hospital gown. Buck prays to god that Eddie doesn’t ask where it came from; he doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he nearly left his son today.

Buck waits until he’s sure Eddie’s asleep before picking up his free hand and holding it between both of his own. It’s only then that he forces himself to finally breathe. Both of the Diaz boys are alive and right in front of him- he shouldn’t have anything else to worry about, right?

Then why does he still feel so goddamn afraid?

Buck is so tuned out to the rest of the world that he doesn’t even realize someone’s come in until a hand settles on his shoulder. He can’t help the way he lurches in his chair, losing his grip on Eddie’s hand. It’s just Bobby, looking at him with more concern than what is necessary. Buck wants to remind him that he’s not the one who nearly died, but he knows that that’s only going to lead to a conversation he doesn’t want to have. 

Bobby asks, “How’s he doing?”

He knows that trick. It’s Bobby’s not so subtle way of asking him how _he’s_ really feeling. If he was any less emotionally exhausted, he’d put up a fight- but he doesn’t have it in him.

“Good as can be expected,” he replies quietly. “He’s not as cold now. I think he’s just glad that Chris is here; he was asking for him in the ambo.”

“Yeah, Hen mentioned that. The nurses say he should be able to go home in the morning, his scans came back clear… could have been a lot worse if you weren’t there.”

Buck knocks his knuckles against his knee, trying to think of a response that won’t make it sound like he’s blaming himself or Eddie for that matter. “Just the luck of the draw, I guess,” he mutters.

“Maybe,” Bobby responds. “But I think you and I both know that luck didn’t have much to do with this.”

 _I didn’t even know where I was going,_ Buck thinks to himself. _I just looked up and he was there. How the hell am I supposed to make sense of that? What am I going to tell Eddie if he asks?_

“Can I get you anything? Coffee, maybe a blanket?”

He doesn’t want either of those things; he just wants to take Eddie home and hide him from the outside world for at least a week. Keep him out of harm’s way for once. Buck doesn’t answer the question. Instead, he opts to ask one of his own. The one that’s been on his mind since the lightning struck down all those hours ago.

“How do you deal with it… watching the people you love get hurt? Not being to help them like you want to.”

Bobby shrugs, looking down at his own coffee. “Most people say just take it day by day. Deal with it as situations arise, but-.”

“But?”

He meets Buck’s eye finally, “But in all my years of life, all the loss, I’ve never been able to find a good answer for that.”

Buck was worried he might say something like that.

Bobby squeezes his shoulder again, saying, “I’ll be in the chapel if you need me.”

He knows that trick, too. Bobby’s way of saying, _don’t let this eat you alive when you have the chance to talk to someone about it first._ Even if he wanted to talk about it, Buck wouldn’t know where to start.

Once he’s gone, Buck sags in his chair, letting out a long breath. He rubs his hands over his eyes tiredly, pulling his hand away when he hears a sharp intake of air from in front of him.

Eddie blinks rapidly as he comes back to minor awareness. He looks around until he finds Buck sitting there. “Were you talkin’ to me?”

“No, no, just- one of the nurses,” Buck lies. “Go back to sleep, you need it.”

“’Kay,” Eddie says, already falling asleep again. His head lolls until it finds the top of Christopher’s head. Eddie nuzzles the curls for a moment before making himself comfortable, dead to the world once again.

For a while, all he can do is watch Eddie’s chest rise and fall as he sleeps. It’s the only way that he can be sure that Eddie is okay. It hurts, in a way. Watching Eddie and knowing that he’s hurt- that he could’ve been hurt a lot worse.

If the outcome of this day had been any different, Buck doesn’t know what he would’ve done with himself.

When all the thoughts running through his head get to be too much, he picks up Eddie’s hand again. A sense of relief floods him when he feels Eddie’s pulse jumping under his skin, strong as ever.

Buck bows his head, holding the back of Eddie’s hand to his face, and cries for all that it’s worth. He cries for Eddie’s sake, unable to get the thought of his soaking wet, pale _not breathing_ face out of his head. He cries for Christopher, grateful that the world decided to wait another day before making the poor kid an orphan.

Buck looks up at Eddie again, begging whoever is listening to let this man that he loves stay a while longer.

Just until he’s brave enough to admit it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my fic! Comments/Kudos are both appreciated and encouraged. Feel free to leave a prompt if that's your thing. I hope you're having a great day!


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